We’ve come to the end of our third week now and it’s sad that we’ve only got one week left of the course.Thursday’s lesson was as good fun as usual though.  We spent most of it learning how to buy things in different scenarios.  We started at the department store, where we got into pairs and wrote a short dialogue between a customer and a shop assistant (verkaufer/verkauferin).  We also listened to some recorded dialogue in order for us to understand intonation (tricky stuff!).After the department store, we practiced enquiring about items for sale in the paper.   In real life this would involve speaking over the phone without the hand signals usually used when you don’t know the language very well!  We all did quite well speaking with our backs to each other as if we were on the telephone..  At the end of the lesson we got to have some more fun pretending we were kids in a Supermarket asking for chocolates, sweets etc from our father!So, it’s the end of the week and time for a long weekend (there’s a public holiday here in Germany on Monday you see).  To celebrate , most of the class went out for a drink at the Hofbrauhaus.  Guter Spaß für alle.Here we all are in our classroom……

Today we learnt how to say ‘I have…’ and ‘I don’t have’ using the correct articles for each noun.    For example:

Hast du…eine Spuelmaschine/einen MP3 player/eins Auto?

Ich habe eine Spuelmaschine – I have a dishwasher:) Ich habe einen MP3 player – I have a MP3 player:) Ich habe ein Auto – I have a car:( Ich habe keine Spuelmaschine – I don’t have a dishwasher:( Ich habe keinen MP3 player – I don’t have an MP3 player:( I habe kein Auto – I don’t have a carSo… what is key for us to remember is that when a noun is neutral (i.e. has the article ‘das’), we change ein to eins, kein to keins, and remove the noun from the sentence altogether.  We had fun practising this by pretending we were sales men/women, coming to the door and listing what we had for our partners to buy.We then went shopping (again ), but this time in the department store.  We learnt quite a few questions and responses that would definitely help if we were searching for something in a large store.   For example, asking which floor departments were on, and what we were looking for in particular when asked.Towards the end of the lesson, we moved on to learning about plurals.  For example, ‘das Auto’ becomes ‘die Autos’, and ‘der Teppich’ becomes ‘die Teppiche’.  The good news is that all plurals use the article ‘die’.  The not so good news is that singular words change in a number of different ways to become plural!  I’m sure it’s just a case of learning them a few at a time

Another boiling hot day here in Munich.  It’s a good job we have a fan in our classroom!Today we carried on with ‘Artikel Akkusativ’ – i.e. verbs, subjects and objects.  It’s very different to English and I’m finding it complicated, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.  Bettina had put together some little comic strip pictures for us all, and we had fun going through each one identifying the ‘subject’ and the ‘object’.  For example, in the next few sentences the suject is highlighted in bold and the object is in CAPITALS.Der Mann bestellt EINEN KAFFEE (The man orders a coffee)Die Frau tanzt (The women dances)Die Waschmaschine wäscht DIE KLEIDUNG (The washing machine washes the clothes)Following this, we also learnt that the only articles that change when there’s a subject and an object in a sentence is the masculine article – der.We then did some more shopping (hurrah!).  Pretend of course, but still fun.  We stuck pictures of household items (sofas, chairs, rugs etc), got into pairs then walked around the shop (well, classroom) asking our partners what they thought of the item.  Me and my partner bought a lovely rug

By the end of the lesson the skies had turned black and a thunder storm looked imminent – something that can happen quite suddenly when you’re this close to the alps.  I raced home on my bike (along with the rest of Munich!) and just made it before a spectacular storm.  Now, we definitely don’t get those in England…

Since Thursday was a public holiday here in Munich, we haven’t been in class since last Wednesday.  We couldn’t have had better weather in our 4 day break though.  It was really hot every day, so I managed to spend a lot of time sitting in the Beer Gardens, and getting in lots of outdoor activities.  On both Thursday and Sunday, my boyfriend and I tried out some of Munich’s outdoor swimming pools.  On Thursday we cycled down the Isar to Maria Einsiedel, which has a lovely flow channel from the Isar that you can swim in.  Warning if you go there, the flow channel is frrrrrezing cold!  Then on Sunday, we went to Ungererbad in Schwabing – a lovely big complex with 4 pools and even a slide

More info on all the outdoor pools in Munich can be found here: http://www.inside-munich.com/outdoor-swimming-pool.htmlAnyway, back to Monday’s lesson.  We started with some speaking training.  Good news for me as my speaking is definitely my weakest area!  We learnt when vowels were produced long (lang) or short (kurz) – for example, the ‘e’s’ in Tee are extended when you say the word, whereas the ‘e’ in ‘denn’ is short, or pronounced quickly.  It’s complicated at first, but hopefully I’m getting the hang of it!We then talked about money (geld) and exchange rates, which was good practice for revising numbers.  Unfortunately this reminded me of the dire state of the pound at the moment – £1.13 for 1 Euro!Finally, towards the end of the lesson we studied ‘einkaufen’ (shopping).  This was good timing for me as it’s my birthday this week and I’m sure I’ll be buying something.  We combined this exercise with learning adjectives – great (toll), not bad (nicht schlecht), boring (langweilig), chic (schick) etc.  To do this we listening to a couple discussing whether to buy certain pieces of furniture in a furniture store.   Whereas 2 weeks ago I would’ve found this extremely difficult, it was great to be able to follow the dialogue and pick up more than a few words.  I’m definitely making some progress

The days are flying by now, and yesterday was our seventh lesson!  It was a particularly useful one for us all as we learnt about food, drink, and ordering in a restaurant.  I’d already picked up a bit of this vocab from my first month in Munich, but I’m really glad that I can now attempt to speak to waiters and waitresses in German.We had fun making up a mock menu, and then taking it in turns to ask how much things cost, and then order beir, wein, kasebrot, wurst etc.  We then learnt how to say ‘I like to eat/drink…’ and ‘I don’t like to eat/drink…’.   For instance, ‘Ich esse gern curry’ (I am British after all! ) and ‘Ich trinke gern wein’.  Before I arrived in Germany, I would’ve said ‘Ich trinke nicht gern bier’, but that’s definitely not true anymore – I order it where ever I go.  We went on to do some listening exercises, and then to had to get into pairs and perform a restaurant scene.  This was particularly good fun, as we all try and make them a bit funny Towards the end of the lesson we had a bit of test on what we’d learnt this week (lektion 2 of the book).  It was good to see where I needed to do the most work – in this week’s case on learning which of der, die and das goes with each word.  I’m hoping this will come with time!

German class again…  We’re getting so much done that we’ll be fluent soon!  In today’s lesson we went over verbs again (think I’ve got it!), articles and useful phrases.  We also got a chance to reinact our own versions of the coffee/chat scenario we learnt about yesterday.  We all got really into it, and although they’ll be no Oscars for our acting ability, it was good fun.  As well as being funny, it was definitely a good exercise in building confidence and fluency.We also tried to increase our vocabulary by labelling objects in the room.  We were ok at remembering the names of things like a ‘chair’, but it’s whether it’s ‘der’, ‘die’ or ‘das’ that’s confusing.  We also labelled little cards with useful vocab such as ‘person’, ‘telephone’ etc, and played a memory game to see if we could match the word to its article.  My excuse is that my memory is rubbish… Towards the end of the lesson we learnt some useful phrases.  For example, when answering a question, being able to say ‘I think…’, ‘I don’t know..’, ‘Perhaps it’s..’ or ‘It is…’.   This is starting to really help me to move past being only able to say single words to people in German, or very simple sentences.  I’m really looking forward to learning more!We only have one more lesson this week as it’s a public holiday on Thursday in Munich.  Fingers crossed that the weather stays nice….Bis Morgen!

Woran denken Sie, wenn Sie das Wort “Unterricht” hören? Vielleicht werden Sie sich eine typische KIasse mit internationalen Teilnehmer  vorstellen. So ist es meistens in Sprachschulen.  Allerdings war es ganz anders bei meinem Unterricht.Meine Lehrerin, die eine Studentin an der Ludwig Maximilians Universität (LMU) kennt, hat vorgeschlagen, dass wir eine Führung durch diese Universität machen. Über diese Einladung haben meine Mitschülerrinnen und ich uns sehr gefreut. Obwohl die Wettervorhesage vorausgesagt hat, dass es regnen wird, war das Wetter einfach schön. Was kann besser sein, als ein Ausflug mit netten Menschen bei diesem blendenden Wetter.Die LMU, die gegenüber der Ludwigkirche liegt, ist eine ikonisches Gebäude bei der Ludwigstraβe. Diese bekannte akademische Institution ist nicht nur reich verziert, sondern auch voll von Geschichte. Vielleicht kann ich es so beschreiben, dass man sich klein fühlen wird, im Vergleich zu diesem riesigen Gebäude.Einige historische Figuren der Universität sind die Geschwister Scholl und die Mitglieder der “Weiβen Rose”, die eine wichtige Rolle im Kampf gegen die Nazis gespielt haben. Die Universität war der Ort einer friedlichen Studentenrevolution. Dort hatten Sophie und Hans School “anti-Nazi” Flublätter verbreitet. Vor der Universität gibt es einen Abdruck  dieser Flublätter auf dem Boden, die uns helfen, dieses Ereignis nicht zu vergessen.In der Universität haben wir viele verschiedene Vorlesungen besucht. Dann kamen wir zu einer riesigen Halle. Diese Halle heiβt “Audimax”. Das ist Latein für auditorium maximum- der gröβte Vorlesungssaal. Fast in jeder Ecke der Universität haben wir einige Fotos gemacht. In meinem Heimatland, Singapur, würden wir “jakun” gennant. Es ist umgangsprachlich für Leute, die sich verhalten als ob sie etwas nie gesehen hätten- wie Touristen.Nach unserer kleinen Führung sind wir um die Universität herum gelaufen und hatten so viele interessante sowie merkwüdige Cafés und Imbisse entdeckt. Aber was konnte mehr Bayerisch sein als ein Besuch am Chinensichen Turm, um Bier zu trinken? Es war wohl der Höchepunkt des Tages, weil mir die Gesellschaft der Leute, das Bier und die Volkmusik sehr gefallen hat.Ich habe den Tag wirklich genossen, und würde gerne wieder einen solchen Ausflug machen!

So we had lovely weather here in Munich…Sunday in particular was the best by far since I arrived in Germany. Munich has so many things to do and see if the sun is shining, and I spent most of the day cycling around some of the sites I hadn’t yet seen (Luitpold Park, Olympia Park, and Schloss Nymphenburg) and then catching some rays in the Englisch Garten.  I couldn’t believe how busy it was there – it was difficult to even find a space to sit   So many people and so much going on made for a brilliant atmosphere though.

During the weekend, I was able to practice speaking a little bit of German to one of my German friends, and have definitely begun to speak German a lot more confidently in restaurants/beer gardens/bars.  I was even able to answer in German when approached by someone in the English Garden asking where my shoes were from!Anyway, so it’s back to learning German at Deutsche Akademie.  Monday was our fifth lesson, and although it’s always good fun, it is starting to get more complicated.  We spent quite a bit of time on verb endings (or Verb-Endung), and because it’s quite different to English it’s taken me a bit longer to grasp than the previous stuff we’ve learnt.  In German, verbs end in different letters depending on the subject (or Subkekt).  So for the verb ‘to come’ you’d say:

• I come – Ich komme
• You come -Du kommst
• He/She/It comes -Er/sie/es kommt
• We come – Wir kommen
• You come (plural) – Ihr kommt
• They come – sie kommen
• I/they etc formally – Sie kommen

It’s mostly the same pattern for the majority of verbs, and I think (hope) I’m starting to get the hang of it!The good thing about German lessons at Deutsche Academie is the way we often apply our learning to real life situations.  For example, filling out the registration form or spelling out our email addresses.  We’re starting to listen to dialogue more from real life situations too, and today we listened to a scene from a group of friends having coffee together.  It was really interesting to hear how the words we’ve been learning should be pronounced and pick up extra bits of vocab along the way too.  Apparently, one of the women in the story was learning German, although she sounded pretty good to me! Let’s hope that’ll be us by the end of the course

So it’s the last day of our first week, and boy we’ve learnt a lot!  I already feel a lot more confident if I’m approached in the street and asked a question, or if I’m speaking to a cashier in a shop. I’m not sure what I say is always completely correct, but at least I’m able to say something other than ‘Ich bin Englisch’ The lesson started with a test (arrgh), but it turned out to be fine and a really good way to see the progress being made.  Today was also a chance for us to go over some of the stuff we learnt in days 1-3.  Bettina gave us a little maths test to do to practice our numbers, for example.  This was fun for me as I love maths – although I did read some of the numbers (which were written in German) wrongly as I was too busy trying to quickly work out the sums!  I’m training to become a maths teacher back in England from September, so as well as learning German these classes have been a good way for me to pick up some tips from Bettina’s teaching, as she’s a really good teacher.We also moved on to section 2 of the book today (yes, already!).  We started by navigating a typical registration form; learning how to ask for what our address/telephone number/email address was, and if we were married/had kids etc.  This was all very useful, although I do wish I’d done this lesson before I spent around 4 hours trying to register in the Kreisverwaltungsreferat in Poccistrasse in my first week!We spent the last part of the lesson learning the alphabet, and had to spell out our names, email address etc to each other. This was great for me as I’m having real trouble pronouncing most German words.  Most of the alphabet is quite similar to English, although j (which is ‘jot’ is German) and y (which is Ypsilon) were less intuitive!Ok, so that’s week one over.  I’ve had a great time and looking forward to the next 3 weeks….

We’re into our third day of the 1A course now and I think everyone’s starting to feel like they’re making some progress.  We’re now able to write and speak a simple dialogue to each other, and seem to be building on what we can say in every lesson.  My list of new sentences learnt is definitely getting longer by the day! And now includes: ‘My name is…’ (Ich heisse Caroline), ‘I am …years old’ (Ich bin 24 jahre alt), ‘I come from…’(Ich komme aus England), ‘I live in…’ (Ich wohne in Schwabing, Muenchen), ‘I can speak….’, (Ich spreche Englisch und etwas Japanisch), and ‘I am…’ (Ich bin Lehrerin) to name just a few.To practice the numbers we learnt yesterday, Bettina suggested that we played Bingo.   If you don’t know what Bingo is, it’s a gambling game mainly played in the UK, US and Australia.  Players each get a grid of random numbers, and then mark off numbers on their grid as they are randomly called out.  If you mark off a complete row, column or straight diagonal of numbers, you shout “Bingo” and you win a prize.  In the UK Bingo is big business – there are huge Bingo halls in every town, which often link up to country wide games where the winner can pocket hundreds of thousands of pounds.  Of course, this wasn’t the case with our Bingo game

Anyway…we had a go at Bingo and it turned out to be really good fun. I managed to win the first game and got to call out the numbers for some of the next game, which was good practice at pronouncing words in German (the bit I’m definitely finding the hardest! )